Linotype’s booth inside the Haus der Kulturen der Welt for the TYPO-Berlin 2011 conference. Pictured from left to write are Tobias Meyerhoff, Rebecca Schalber, and Martin Haeckel.
One of the first thing that visitors to TYPO-Berlin notice upon entering the venu is the number of vendor booths in the reception era. For event-sponsors like Linotype, TYPO-Berlin represents an invaluable opportunity to meet face-to-face with hundreds of practicing graphic designers. It is no surprise then that Linotype GmbH has a booth at TYPO-Berlin. But what exactly goes on at a booth like ours? Our primary goal is simply to be accessible. For three days, anyone can visit our booth to ask us a question, learn about font licensing, font management, or webfonts. Visitors also often come by to receive typeface recommendations, to lodge a complaint, or even to just chat about typography and graphic design.
While we always distribute a few free give-aways at our booths, we have two special brochures this week that most TYPO-Berlin attendees probably haven’t held in their hands yet. The first is our newest issue in the Fonts in Focus series (number 8). We’ve featured Fonts in Focus in our e-mail newsletters and on our website, and Linotype Blog readers can flip through the brochure via the embedded Issuu interface above. Interestly – in a telling sign of how networked the graphic design landscape in Germany is – the Fonts in Focus designers are also present at this year’s TYPO-Berlin. The Fonts in Focus magazined is produced by MAGMA Brand Design in Karlsruhe, who also publish Slanted magazine; Slanted is also present with a vendor booth in the TYPO-Berlin reception area.
Our second new brochure, which shows details of our Platinum Collection typefaces, is hot off the press. This year’s TYPO-Berlin attendees are among the first font-lovers to be able to hold this item in their hands. Almost A4 is size, this 48-page catalog is dedicated to the following typefaces:
- Avenir Next
- Compatil
- DIN Next
- Eurostile Next
- Neue Frutiger
- Frutiger Next
- Optima nova
- Palatino nova + Aldus nova
- Sabon Next
- Neue Swift
- Syntax Next
- Trade Gothic Next
- Univers Next
On Friday and Saturday, visitors to our booth will be able to meet a new face: Doug Wilson. Doug is a graphic designer and filmmaker from Springfield, Missouri. He is currently directing the full-length Linotype: The Film documentary about Ottmar Mergenthaler’s invention of the Linotype Machine during the 19th century. Dough is a TYPO-Berlin 2011 conference speaker, and everyone at TYPO-Berlin is invited to get a sneak peek at clips from his film at 3pm on Friday. For much of the rest of Friday and Saturday, Doug will be at the Linotype booth: He will brings some real type cast from a Linotype Machine with him, and some merch, too.
